


breaking the same old heart

by tardigradeschool



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not a romance, Sharing a Bed, The Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-12 16:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardigradeschool/pseuds/tardigradeschool
Summary: Taako and Magnus in triptych: before, during, and after the Bureau.-Taako has an interesting sense of personal space when he’s sober - he goes from avoiding all touch to wrestling his sister to the ground in about a minute flat - and right now he’s anything but sober. Magnus isn’t going to say it’s not nice, having another person so close. He’s always been a physical kind of guy, so physical nearness is the easiest way to make sure he’s doing his job as protector.Also, Taako’s pretty warm and he smells nice.(Magnus is drunk too.)





	1. before

**Author's Note:**

> I've already written most of this, but the end will change depending on what happens in that wild and crazy ride that will be the finale 
> 
> this mostly came out of trying to parse out whatever the fuck taako and magnus's relationship is - not especially romantic but beyond the platonic?
> 
> title is from "home" by AlicebanD

Taako dies for the first time in the nineteenth cycle. There’s still a month left. Barry had wept when he told them; he had killed the creature that dragged Taako under the water, but Taako’s body had not resurfaced, and Barry, unable to swim, worried that magic would disturb some other monster, could not recover it. 

Lup stands around for about five minutes after Barry’s return, eyes darting and fingers twitching restlessly, before she turns, striding out of the Starblaster into the neighboring forest. Magnus moves to go after her, but Lucretia places a gentle hand on his shoulder before he can. 

“No,” she says firmly. “You can’t fix this. Let her go.”

Lup returns two days later, tight-lipped and terse, but she continues to leave the group once a day or more. Magnus, against his instincts, doesn’t follow her. He wonders, on occasion, what she does; he thinks maybe she sets trees on fire, or maybe she walks to the lake where her brother died. Maybe she cries.

Magnus is no good at this kind of grief. 

He asks Barry what he thinks, one rainy day when they have nothing better to do. There’s been a change in his demeanor too, though it’s more subtle than the one in Lup’s. He’s pale and drawn; he’s grown listless. Magnus suspects he still feels guilty. 

Barry stares out over the edge of the dense forest. He’s rolling a smooth stone in his hands, over and over; Magnus isn’t sure he knows he’s doing it. “I think she just… wants to be alone,” he says.

Magnus can’t relate.

 

On the twenty-fourth cycle, Magnus and Lup are captured  and sentenced to death by a government that condemns chaos in all forms. Lup and Magnus are chaos incarnate. 

Magnus, due to a pretty hard knock on the head, is unconscious for almost their whole trial and only wakes up in their cell directly before the main event. 

“Magnus,” Lup is hissing, directly into his ear. “Magnus, wake up. Hey.” He blinks; she pinches him hard in the side of the neck.

“Ow, c’mon.”

“That hurts way less than being beheaded will. You need to listen to me.” She holds up her bound wrists. “These block my magic, okay? I’m going to cause a diversion, but they only take the cuffs off when you’re literally in the guillotine. I’m not even sure I’ll have time before they switch over to the shackles. So when you hear it, Magnus, you have to run. Okay?”

Magnus squints at her. “What about you?”

Lup grimaces. “Hopefully the diversion will work for me too. But if it doesn’t, you need to get back to the ship anyway. The others are in danger too. Do you understand?”

Magnus doesn’t like it, but he does understand. He nods.

“Good.” Lup kisses him on the forehead. “And on the off chance that it, you know, doesn’t work, don’t let Taako be alone, alright? There’s still seven weeks left. He thinks he’s good at being by himself, but he isn’t. Can you handle that?”

“Yes,” Magnus says, squaring his shoulders. He’s always been better when he has a job to do, a mission to complete, when there’s  _ something _ he can do to assuage the helplessness that expands inside him when his friends put themselves in danger.

Magnus was an only child, but Lup makes him wish he had sisters. When the guards come and one of them kicks her in the leg as she’s standing, it hurts Magnus like it was his own body. They take Magnus too, but his chains are lighter. (This is the first time his total and complete lack of aptitude for magic has actually benefitted him.)

They keep him in another room while Lup is brought out to the square, and he can’t decide if it’s better or worse; he loathes not knowing what’s happening, but if he had to watch Lup climbing into a guillotine, his heart might stop beating. 

When he hears an explosion, it’s almost too simple to knock out both the guards. They weren’t expecting resistance and no one could possibly have anticipated Lup.

Magnus runs. When he’s out of sight of the castle, he waits. 

 

Magnus waits two full days before he can accept that she’s gone. It should be impossible, except it would be so like Lup to turn up at the very last moment, singed but alive, laughing at him for having worried.

It doesn’t happen.

Instead, Magnus manages to break the link between his cuffs. The chains dangle unevenly on his arms. Magnus walks back to the Starblaster. It’s four nights of camping beside backroads and not eating enough, but he would rather do almost anything than return to the ship. There’s a part of him that still hopes that Lup will catch up to him, and a larger part dreading more than anything having to look the rest of the crew in the eye.

He gets back to the Starblaster six and a half days after running like a coward.

Lucretia is sitting in the grass beside the ship; it’s a beautiful day out, and the flora on this plane is gorgeous. Surprise turns into relief when she sees him. 

“Magnus,” she says, rising. “Thank goodness you’re okay. We were so afraid, and -  _ are _ you okay?”

“Uh,” Magnus says. His voice is rough. “I think maybe I have a concussion. I-” He tries to say something else, but the words refuse to form. Lucretia’s relief turns into fear. 

“Magnus,” she says again, this time much more quietly. “Lup, is she - ?”

“Yeah,” Magnus says, voice cracking in a way that Lup absolutely would have made fun of him for, and then, entirely without his consent, his legs buckle beneath him.

 

The first thing he says when he wakes up is, “Where’s Taako?” He tries to sit up, but Davenport pushes his shoulder down. 

“Slowly,” he says, and sure enough, Magnus has to close his eyes for a moment while the world rights itself. There’s quiet while he takes a moment to breathe, and then someone else inhales. 

“Magnus,” Barry says, “Is she really-?”

“Yeah,” Magnus says. He can’t look at him. He sits up again, slowly this time. Lucretia is here too, although she hasn’t said anything. “Pretty sure. I didn’t see it, but…” He shrugs helplessly.

Barry exhales hard. Davenport’s expression grows grimmer. Lucretia lightly rests a hand on Magnus’s back. “Where’s Taako?” he repeats.

“In his room,” Lucretia says. “We figured he might want to be alone.”

Magnus stands. To his slight surprise, no one objects. He keeps one hand on the wall as he walks, to keep him steady, and when he knocks on the door to Taako’s room he doesn’t answer. Magnus comes in anyway. 

“You look like shit,” Taako says. He’s lying on the floor. 

“So do you,” Magnus says. He has no idea what he’s doing. “I’m sorry,” he says, meaning for everything, but Taako just looks at him. “Can I?” He gestures to the floor next to Taako and Taako gives him the barest hint of a shrug. Something aches inside Magnus; this apathy is so much worse than Lup’s anger.

He lies down beside Taako. Taako doesn’t move at all. After a moment, Magnus shifts the tiniest bit closer, until they’re lying against one another. 

Time passes. Magnus isn’t sure how long they lie there. At some point, he looks down and realizes that Taako’s narrow fingers have curled, the tiniest bit, into the extra fabric of his shirt. At this point, he’s going to count it as a victory. 

 

In the very beginning, Magnus had found it difficult to tell the twins apart. They weren’t quite identical, but they were about as similar as two people could get without being indistinguishable. There were subtle differences, of course; Lup was slightly taller, Taako’s nose was slightly pointier. He had relied on those differences, during those first couple weeks of training, to keep from making a fool of himself. (Not that, as Lup occasionally reminded him with fondness, he had needed help.)

Now, though, fifty years years in, Magnus can’t imagine mistaking one for the other. Lup is the twin with the grander ideas, the chewed nails, the laughing eyes. Taako is the twin plastered against Magnus’s side in an IPRE regulation size twin bed, laughing so hard tears are rolling down his face. Taako has an interesting sense of personal space when he’s sober - he goes from avoiding all touch to wrestling his sister to the ground in about a minute flat - and right now he’s anything but sober. Magnus isn’t going to say it’s not nice, having another person so close. He’s always been a physical kind of guy, so physical nearness is the easiest way to make sure he’s doing his job as protector. 

Also, Taako’s pretty warm and he smells nice.

(Magnus is drunk too.)

“Hand it over,” Taako demands, still laughing a little at nothing at all, and Magnus obligingly hands him the bottle of wine they’ve been passing. Either it’s a lot more potent than the stuff at home or Magnus is losing his tolerance, because after one shared bottle he’s already feeling sort of heavy and relaxed. 

Taako tips the bottle up. When Magnus reaches over to take it back, Taako shakes his head and puts it down on the floor beside the bed. “Gone,” he says, somewhat mournfully. 

“We’ll all be gone someday,” Magnus says in his best Lucretia impression, which is still not very good. He’s not even really listening to himself.

Taako sighs a little, lets his head tilt back onto Magnus’s arm. “Will we though? What if we just end up doing this forever?”

Magnus tries to think, but the thoughts come out a little fuzzy on the edges. “I’ll be seventy-one this May.”

“Isn’t that old for humans?” Taako asks. “I’d be a hundred and sixty?” He says it like a question. “Sixty-five, maybe?” He doesn’t seem too concerned about not knowing his own age, so Magnus decides not to be concerned either.

“Have you thought about after?” Magnus asks. “If there is an after? If we end up on some world and actually live there longer than a year?”

“Nope,” Taako says, popping the p. 

If Magnus is being totally, completely honest, he has thought about a little. “I’d settle down,” he says. “I joined the IPRE to adventure… and when we defeat the Hunger, I will have, so. Maybe I’ll take up a trade, become a lumberjack or a blacksmith or something.”

Taako glances up at him, heavy lidded and half-smiling from where he’s sprawled against Magnus. “Sounds boring,” he says. “But I guess boredom is a luxury to us adventurer types.” He waits another moment. “Sounds lonely.”

Oh - lonely. Magnus has felt a lot of things in these past fifty years, but lonely has rarely, if ever, been one of them. He’s almost forgotten what it’s like to live without six eccentric roommates who are always existing in his space. And now… he’s not sure if he wants to or even could live without it. 

It must show on his face, because Taako reaches up and pats his shoulder. “Don’t be sad, Mags,” he says, more openly affectionate than Magnus has ever seen him sober. “I’ll live with you.”

“You will?” Magnus says, mostly out of surprise.

Taako shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “Where else am I gonna go? I’ve lived with Lup my whole life and she’s got Barry now. But hey, who needs her when I have a buff and handsome new roommate?”

Magnus laughs a little. “You won’t get bored?”

Taako settles his sharp chin on Magnus’s chest. “We’ll have Lup over for dinner once a week and she can set some shit on fire to keep things interesting.” 

Magnus smiles at Taako. Taako smiles back, and then he kisses him, just a little bit. 

Magnus thinks maybe he was going to kiss him on the cheek, but missed, and then just sort of went with it. Taako tastes like the wine they were just drinking, sweet and heady. It isn’t a passionate kiss - they’re both a little too drunk for that - but it’s nice. Taako’s hand comes up to the side of his head, running fingers idly over his jaw and sideburns, into his hair. 

It’s nice.

After a little while, Taako leans back, settling back where he’d been, curled up against Magnus’s side. Magnus opens his mouth, maybe to say something dumb about how much he likes Taako, maybe to tell Taako he doesn’t like him like  _ that _ \- Magnus himself isn’t quite sure. He isn’t getting any dawning realizations, but he also wouldn’t mind staying here with Taako next to him for the rest of the cycle - or forever.

Taako sees him about to talk and shakes his head against Magnus’s chest. “Shh,” he says. “I’m sleeping.”

Magnus snorts. “No, you’re not. Besides, I thought elves didn’t need to sleep.” It’s a running joke of theirs; Lup would nap every day if she could and Taako sleeps until noon if no one wakes him up.

Taako sighs. “We don’t  _ need  _ to,” he says. “But you don’t  _ need _ that chocolate mousse I make on your birthday.” He yawns. “Just so you know, I haven’t figured out how to transmute a hangover into a fun time, so you should probably…” He makes a lazy motion with his hand. Magnus begins to wonder if he’s too tired to bother finishing his sentence, but consciousness slips away from him before he can make fun of Taako for it.

 

There are moments - the bad moments - when there’s nothing better to do except think about the future he’ll probably never have. 

They had found the Light of Creation, but only with a few days to spare, and the people who had it weren’t too psyched to give it up. Someone had needed to stay behind to give the other members of the party a chance to get back to the ship. 

Taako shifts in his lap and Magnus reaches down on instinct to brush his hair away from his face. The whole point in leaving two people behind is that they could protect each other.

Magnus failed. Taako is dying.

Magnus is hurt too, but it’s pretty likely that someone will find and kill them before Magnus dies on his own. The only things keeping him sitting upright are the wall behind his back and the fact that if someone tries to get through the gate, Magnus still has the warning flare Lup made for him. He can be useful, even like this, even with Taako bleeding out in his lap.

Taako had been unconscious earlier, but when Magnus touches his face he looks up, almost clear-eyed. He’s got a nasty scrape beside his eye from when he hit the ground. He isn’t looking at Magnus. “The stars,” he says, “They’re so clear on this plane.”

Magnus’s chest hurts and his throat is tight. “Taako…”

Taako laughs. It turns into a deep cough halfway through, but he shakes his head.  “I’m just playin’, dawg. I don’t give a shit about stars.”

Against all odds, Magnus laughs a little too, even though the movement makes his broken ribs shift inside him. “Oh, Taako,” he says, hamming it up to continue the goof. “Whatever will I do? Our little cottage will be so empty without you.” He sweeps a hand over Taako’s hair again, this time more dramatically.

Taako catches his hand, tracing over his knuckles with shaking fingers. “Your nail polish is chipped,” he says. “I’ll do more layers next time.”

Magnus examines his hand. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says. “I’ll remind you.”

Taako doesn’t say anything back.

It’s a couple more hours before Magnus goes too. He’s not much of a planner, but he thinks about the cottage. 

 

When you live in close quarters with a person for over eight decades, you tend to get pretty familiar. This is true of even Magnus’s most close-lipped teammates; at this point he probably knows Davenport and Lucretia as well as or better than their own mothers did.  

So it’s more than a little surprising when Taako not only comes into his room unannounced, but does so with an expression Magnus isn’t sure he’s seen on him before.

“Hey,” Magnus says, when Taako doesn’t explain his presence. He clears a space on his bed, brushing away the wood slivers there. “Is uh. Is everything okay?”

Taako sits before he speaks. “No,” he says, not meeting Magnus’s eyes. “I’m not sure it is.”

This in itself is so alarming that for a moment Magnus doesn’t have anything to say. “Is there something I should do? Do you want me to get Lup?” Taako flinches, almost imperceptibly, at the mention of his sister. “Taako-”

“Look, I- I can’t say.” He stays perfectly still, gaze directed firmly at his hands, folded in his lap. “I just need someone to hug me and not ask questions. Think you can handle that, bucko?”

Magnus doesn’t bother answering, just moves a few inches forward and gathers Taako up into his arms. The tension falls out of Taako’s body almost as soon as he touches him; Magnus can feel him melt against him, letting his head settle into the space between Magnus’s shoulder and his neck. After a moment, Magnus smooths his hand over Taako’s back - he can feel the vertebrae - and Taako curls in even closer. Magnus pretends not to notice the shaky breath that Taako lets out against his skin. 

Too soon, Taako pulls away, scrubbing the heel of his palm surreptitiously over his face. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Magnus says, meaning it. “Do you want to, uh, stay?” 

Taako runs a hand over Magnus’s comforter. “Nah,” he says, even though it seems like he does. 

“You can stay,” Magnus says. “I really don’t mind.” What he doesn’t say is how sometimes he can’t sleep sometimes until he sneaks around the whole ship to make sure he can hear all the others breathing. How he always says yes when Merle offers him uh, that sweet, kind bud, because inevitably Merle ends up falling asleep in Magnus’s room. How much better it makes it to have someone there. 

Taako doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move either. Carefully, Magnus turns around and starts working on his carving again. By the time he’s brushing off the last curls of wood, the evening light creeping in through the window has faded to darkness. Magnus glances back behind him.

Taako is asleep on the bed, on top of the blanket, his back to the wall. He’s loose-limbed in a way he only ever is when he’s fully asleep. Magnus stands, cautious about waking him up; Taako is one of the lightest sleepers he’s ever met. Boots off, Magnus pulls out an extra blanket and slowly settles down onto the bed, drawing it over himself and Taako, who stirs slightly and blinks at him.

“Shit, sorry,” Magnus whispers. “Go back to sleep. Unless you want to talk about what’s bothering you, ha ha.”

It really is a joke, but Taako looks away. For a second, Magnus thinks he might get up and leave, but then he says, like he doesn’t quite mean to, “Lup and Barry are planning something. Something dangerous.”

“Oh,” Magnus says. He knows they’ve been working on something, but they always are, the two of them. 

“I trust them,” Taako says. “More than anyone. But-” He swallows, and for a terrifying moment Magnus doesn’t know what to do. He hates being out of control.

So he does the only thing he can do. He reaches over and pulls Taako up against him. He’s never been good with words, but this he knows. Taako goes tense for a second, then leans into him. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Magnus says, and Taako snorts into his shirt.

“If you say so, big buy,” he says. 

Magnus stays awake as Taako’s breathing evens out. He has to remind himself not to get used to this; if he gets used to keeping people this close, he’ll never unlearn how good it feels knowing they’re safe.


	2. during

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not actually sure how old I am. Not sure when the ol’ birthday is, either.” Taako screws up his face for a second. “I used to know.”
> 
> “Huh,” Magnus says. “Well, don’t elves live, like, six hundred years anyway? So I guess you don’t even have to worry about it.”
> 
> “Well, elves in general? Yeah.” He offers Magnus a lazy smile. “Me? Probably not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter won't come out until after the finale, although if one of the main characters dies, i'll just be... ignoring that

Magnus knows he’s generally a lot more physically comfortable with other people than they are with him. Julia had loved that about him; she was the same way. At one point, they had a joke where she would, with no warning, take a running leap at him from several yards away. Magnus would catch her, her whole body tucked up in his arms. She could do the same to him; on their wedding day, she scooped him up and carried him into their home, and Magnus was so full of feeling he thought his heart might stop there and then.

Merle puts up with a fair amount of shoulder-nudging and friendly hip checks from him (although there isn’t a huge difference; Merle’s shoulder is about level with Magnus’s hip anyway) but would never be caught cozying up to him in any other capacity. Taako is even cagier about physical contact; some of the most impressive maneuvers Magnus has seen from him have been to escape potential hug situations.

“That just isn’t Taako’s thang,” Taako has said airily on more than one occasion. “If I burn a spell slot making a force field to keep your sweaty arms away, it will be your fault if I die in battle.” 

Taako’s joking, or at least, just being Taako, but Magnus does kind of have a thing about people being killed because of him. By thing, he means visceral fear. So he does respect Taako’s personal space, as much as he can. Still, even when they’ve settled into life at the Bureau, even when they’ve made friends, it doesn’t mean that Magnus isn’t - and he doesn’t want to sound ungrateful but - a little alone.

 

At some point, a training exercise goes wrong. They’re in a cave system when the walls and ceiling start crumbling around them. Magnus loses his footing and falls, hard, breaking his ankle. Merle gets hit by a chunk of falling rock and passes the fuck out. Taako manages to cast a kind of force field around the three of them before they’re completely crushed, but even he doesn’t escape without injury; he had staggered backwards into a jut of rock and broke what Magnus guesses to be at least two ribs. 

That part is actually pretty standard adventuring. The part where they have to wait several hours for the Bureau to find them is the part he’s unprepared for. 

Even after about four and a half hours, Merle still hasn’t woken up, and Taako’s lungs have started making this wheezing noise when he breathes in. He’s had to recast the force field for each hour they’ve been there, and every time he does it diminishes a little, the radius decreasing and the bubble itself becoming less and less opaque. Aside from the wheezing, Taako seems mostly okay; he’s got a little bit of a nosebleed but he’s sitting up alright. He has to keep pushing his hair out of his face to keep it from falling in his eyes. It’s the movement of a frustrated child, and it makes Magnus consider something he’d never thought about before.

“Taako,” he says, setting down the wood he’s been whittling. “How old are you?”

Taako glances over at him. “Look,” he says, “I know you’ve got that whole country boy vibe going for you and everything, but even you must know that’s an impolite thing to ask, right?”

“I mean,” Magnus says. “I just wondered. I don’t think we’re going to die here, but if we did I have no idea what age they’d be printing in the obituary.”

“Obituaries are for boring, non-famous people. When I die, you’ll know from the wailing in the streets, my man.” He brushes his hair out of his face again. His inhale makes that wheezing noise.

“Sorry,” Magnus says. “Didn’t mean to pry. I’m thirty-one, if you were wondering.”

“I was not wondering,” Taako says, but then a moment later he says, like he hadn’t realized. “I’m not actually sure how old I am. Not sure when the ol’ birthday is, either.” He screws up his face for a second. “I used to know.”

“Huh,” Magnus says. “Well, don’t elves live, like, six hundred years anyway? So I guess you don’t even have to worry about it.”

“Well, elves in general? Yeah.” He offers Magnus a lazy smile. “Me? Probably not.”

 

The first time Magnus gets seriously, like really badly hurt adventuring with them (which jumping off a train with only a few hit points left will tend to do), there’s a hospital nearby, but the second time they aren’t even off reclaiming. They’re on an errand for Avi, who had wanted to pick up some new kind of liquor. Magnus had agreed just for a chance to get off the moon.

It’s not exactly thrilling, but they’re having lunch in a middle-of-nowhere town, which is frankly exotic compared to the leftovers Magnus has been eating for the past week and a half. Merle has tucked cheerfully into the burger he ordered and Taako is sipping a lemonade and poking at his fish. Magnus is about two bites into his sandwich before he realizes that something is super wrong. He’s pretty sure the world isn’t supposed to spin when you’re sitting down. Also, his whole body feels hot, and not in a sexy way.

He sets the sandwich down, which is apparently out of character enough that both of his adventuring comrades look at him in surprise (Taako) and mild alarm (Merle). 

“Guys,” he tries to say, but nothing comes out, and when he tries to stand up to get some help and maybe a glass of water, he falls.

The last thing he sees is Merle kneeling beside him, thick eyebrows set in a ferocious scowl, and Taako, directly above him, thin-lipped, wide-eyed, and looking more terrified than Magnus has ever seen him.

 

When Magnus wakes up, it’s to the pleasant realization that he can breathe again. They’re camped out on top of a hill just outside the town; Magnus can see the lights of the little village below them not too far away. A dying fire crackles a few feet away from his feet.

He’s flanked on each side by his two companions. Merle is a couple feet away on his left, snoring in a way that somehow has become somewhat endearing, or at least tolerable. Taako, though, is plastered face down against his right side, on top of his arm and shoulder. Taako’s pretty light, if a little bony, so it isn’t an issue of discomfort. Magnus has never seen him voluntarily touch someone in any way more familiar than a high five. He’s also never seen him meditate. But this feels… familiar.

Taako’s face is buried in Magnus’s shirt, and one of his arms is thrown over Magnus’s chest in a way that seems less possessive than it does protective. Or maybe Magnus is imagining things. 

Here’s one thing Magnus is not imagining: he  _ super _ has to pee. He tries to shift out from under Taako without waking him up, but Taako jolts immediately, jerking away from Magnus; he clearly is not a deep sleeper. Meditater? Whatever. Magnus’s right side misses the warmth.

“Hey,” Magnus whispers, to avoid waking Merle up. 

“Hey,” Taako says, normal volume. He rubs the heel of his hand over his eye, yawning. “Why the fresh hell didn’t you tell us you were allergic to sesame?”

“To what?”

“ _Sesame_ ,” Taako says, looking as scandalized as a rumpled elf in dirty adventuring gear can. “Have you never had _sesame_ _seeds_ before?”

Magnus shrugs. “Guess not.” He looks more closely at Taako; for someone who was just sleeping, he looks much wearier than usual. “You alright?”

“Me? I’m peachy, pal. You’re the one who almost died.” Taako picks at a loose thread in his blouse, his avoidance of eye contact belying his seemingly light tone.  
“I know,” Magnus says, even though he hadn’t known that until Taako said so. “I’m just asking ‘cause you look kind of, like, _not_ okay.”

“It’s in, that’s why. Crisis chic,” Taako says, somewhat nonsensically. “You know me, always fashion forward.”

“I guess,” Magnus says. “How did you know I was allergic to the sandwich? It could have been… I don’t know, poison or something.”

It could be the wavering light of the fire, but Magnus could swear he sees Taako blanch. “It wasn’t poison,” Taako says. “Trust me.”

Magnus tries to ask him what that means, but Taako just turns onto his side, away from Magnus, and pretends to be asleep. Magnus sighs and hauls himself to his feet. It’s kind of dumb that Magnus started this conversation with someone warm next to him and now he’s finishing it chilly and confused. It’s really dumb, actually, but Magnus is too tired to be really frustrated about it right then.

 

That’s how it starts, Magnus thinks. Or maybe it starts when the Bureau has a problem with the fantasy thermostat and after falling into a light sleep under six blankets (it’s pretty cold in the sky!), Magnus is woken between one and two in the morning by Taako slipping under the covers and sticking his absolutely freezing feet up against Magnus’s calves. 

“What the fuck,” Magnus manages, fairly disoriented by both the sudden jump into consciousness and the sight of Taako’s face within six inches of his when he opens his eyes.

“If you don’t want me here, stop being a furnace,” Taako says. He has apparently brought his own blankets with him, which are still wrapped around him like a cocoon even as he positions himself firmly under Magnus’s comforter. 

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Magnus says. “At the very least we should be sharing our blankets, right?” With the utmost reluctance and a fair amount of work, Taako squirms his blanket cocoon off and manages to shove the blankets on top of both of them without removing himself from the snugness of the bed. Magnus is pretty impressed. Also, due to the relative narrowness of his bedframe, he finds himself with an armful of pliant, warm Taako. 

Taako seems much less concerned with this than he does; he turns on his side, close but not quite in contact with him. This leaves Magnus awkwardly restraining himself from chasing his warmth, lying on his back when he really wants to be curled around Taako. He’s much less cold than he was before, but unhappily aware how much warmer he could be if Taako would just move an inch closer. 

 

Of the three of them, Magnus is one who gets most into the fights; it isn’t the violence that he likes exactly, it’s the action, the feeling of free movement. Still, he thinks Taako and Merle get a kind of pleasure from winning too, and it’s pretty normal for them to exchange breathless grins once the fight is over.

Not this fight. 

Merle’s been in rough shape since they began, so Magnus spent almost the whole time just making sure nothing hit him harder than he could handle. He’s gotten a slash across the shoulder for his efforts, one that will probably scar, and Merle, in stepping to avoid a crossbow bolt, twisted his ankle pretty badly. 

“Hey, Taako,” Magnus calls, without glancing behind him. He’s developed a pretty good sense of where the other two are at any given time, which helps a lot during battles. “Could you give us a hand? Merle’s gonna need help walking until we find him a crutch.”

“No can do, I’m afraid,” Taako says, a little faintly. “Sorry, bubbeleh.”

Magnus hears Angus squeak, “Sir?”

Magnus and Merle turn as one, all thoughts of Merle’s injury forgotten.

Taako offers the clearing at large a beatific smile - there’s blood on his teeth - makes the vague suggestion of a shrug - there’s blood on his stomach and hands too - and crumples. 

Magnus reaches him first, Angus half a step behind and on the edge of hyperventilation. Merle throws himself down beside the three of them a moment later. Taako is completely limp, one long leg twisted at an uncomfortable angle from falling over. The several layers he’s wearing make it difficult to immediately assess how badly he’s been hurt, but he’s breathing.

Magnus clings to that fact, to the rise and fall of Taako’s thin chest as Merle pulls out a knife and begins mercilessly cutting and peeling back Taako’s clothes. Taako’s eyelashes are dark against his dusty brown skin, face relaxed in a way that is more reminiscent of death than sleep. Magnus has only seen Taako sleep a handful of times, and he’s never looked calm while doing so.

Everything is fine until Angus starts crying. 

That’s actually untrue since the thing he’s crying about is Taako’s imminent death, which Magnus will freely admit majorly fucking  _ sucks  _ as a concept. But it’s a concept he’s pretty familiar with, on account of having adventured with Taako for a while now; he’s seen Taako in bad shape before. 

What he isn’t prepared to deal with is Angus crying. It’s a fairly familiar situation, because Angus is wont to cry whenever he feels any emotion a little too strongly, but this is different. Rather than the wide eyed, gaspy sniffle Angus usually tends towards, he’s now crouched solemnly beside Taako’s prone form, clutching one of Taako’s hands in both of his, and silent tears are cascading down his face. Merle keeps glaring at him for being in the way, but Angus clearly isn’t getting the message, so Magnus reluctantly makes his way over.

“Hey,” he says gently. This isn’t exactly the same as his animal proficiency, but it isn’t too different either. “Why don’t we let Merle do what he needs to do?”

Angus turns his face up towards Magnus, the abject misery there making Magnus’s throat constrict a little, and he chokes out, “Okay, sir, if you think that’s best.”

It’s a clear night. They’re camped at the edge of a sparse forest, several leagues out from any city. Communications are dead and if luck doesn’t go their way, Taako might be soon.

Magnus leads Angus a ways away from the camp and finds them a fallen tree to sit on. Angus’s legs dangle off the side, feet just barely reaching the ground. Without the campfire, the night is cooler than Magnus had realized. He puts what he hopes is a benevolent hand on Angus’s narrow back.

“You doing okay, Ango? No cuts or bruises you forgot to mention?”

“No sir,” Angus says, looking at the ground. “I only took two points of damage.”

“Hey, that’s real good,” Magnus says. “I knew you had been training, but those must have been some really sweet flips.”

“They were,” Angus agrees dejectedly. He scuffs the toe of his shoe in the thin grass surrounding them and then blurts. “What happened to Taako is my fault, sir,” and starts to cry again.

“Hey, hey,” Magnus says, moving to kneel in front of where Angus is sitting. “Deep breaths, Ango. It’s not your fault.” It had been bad enough when it happened.  _ Taako,  _ he’d been saying, wobble-voiced, as Magnus propped Taako’s body up for Merle to stitch, pleading,  _ Taako, please sir, Taako, please be okay.  _ “It isn’t anybody’s fault, buddy, it just happened.”

“But it is,” Angus manages between sobs. “He was teaching me magic this morning and there was a spell I just couldn’t understand and he used up spell slots showing it to me and if I had learned it quicker then he would still be-” He has to stop to take a wavering breath, and Magnus stops him there.

“Taako uses spell slots on the stupidest shit every day,” he says. “I once saw him use Blink because he didn’t want to walk around the counter to get a spatula.”

Angus finally manages to breathe in for real, letting it out shakily. “I guess he does,” he concedes. Magnus uses a piece of sleeve to wipe some of the tears of Angus’s face.

“There you go,” he tells him. 

 

Angus falls asleep next to the fire eventually. Magnus is the only one still up when Taako blinks open his eyes, then grimaces.

“Don’t fuckin’ do that again,” Magnus tells him without preamble.

“Yeah, yeah,” Taako says. “Didn’t do it on purpose.” He tries to shift, then winces. 

“Here,” Magnus says, moving over so Taako can prop his head on his lap. 

He assumes Taako will fall asleep again quickly, so it startles him when, twenty minutes later, Taako murmurs, “Don’t stop.”

“Hmm?” Magnus looks down. Taako’s hair is spread over his leg, the end of it slipping through his fingers. He used to stroke Julia’s hair when she had trouble sleeping; maybe that’s why this had felt so easy, so automatic. “Sorry.”

Taako’s hair is softer than it has any right to be when they’ve been camping in the woods for three nights. There are a couple knots that Magnus tries to work through as gently as possible; when he looks at Taako’s face to make sure he hasn’t hurt him, he finds that Taako has fallen asleep.

 

Magnus stumbles into the kitchen a little after two in the morning. He’s tended towards insomnia ever since Ravensroost was destroyed, but the ordeal with Refuge has made everything much worse. The papers haunt him, the unreadable words buzzing around in his head like he’s trying to fit a puzzle piece into the wrong puzzle. When he thinks about how close he was to giving into the Chalice, it makes him shudder, but when he thinks about what he could done with it it makes his whole body ache.

Anyway. Magnus hasn’t been sleeping great. He’s rummaging around in the cabinet for the fantasy Swiss Miss when someone says something behind him and he jumps, banging his head on a shelf.

“Sorry,” he says, rubbing his head and twisting around. “What did you say, Taako?”

Taako looks sullen. “It was a pretty dramatic and cool line, but the moment’s passed.” He pushes himself onto the counter, feet swinging in front of the drawers. “‘Sup?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Magnus says. “You want hot chocolate.”

“I mean, I’m not gonna turn it down,” Taako says reasonably. He waits a moment. “Nightmares?”

“Nah,” Magnus says. “I mean, not tonight. My brain just wouldn’t switch off.”

Taako laughs. “Ladies and gentlemen, the first recorded time in history that Magnus Burnsides’ brain was working too hard!” He imitates a crowd cheering and Magnus snorts. 

“What about you?” he asks.

Taako tilts his head at him. “What about me? I mean, what  _ isn’t _ about me, let’s be real.”

“Why’re you up, I mean.”

All Taako offers him is a one-shouldered shrug and though it seems nonchalant, Magnus gets the feeling he isn’t the only one still dealing with what happened in Refuge. 

There’s relative silence in the kitchen as Magnus turns on the stove to heat up the milk. Eventually, Taako says. “You ever think about how far we’ve gotten? In only two relics, you and me and Merle’ll be out of a job.”

“No,” Magnus says honestly. “I hadn’t thought about it.” Magnus doesn’t do a lot of planning. Also, the way these past couple missions have gone, Magnus’s bet isn’t on surviving these next two. 

“I hadn’t either,” Taako says. He takes an absentminded sip from the mug Magnus hands him. He looks more pensive than Magnus has ever maybe seen him. “Any idea what do you want to do after?”

“Nope,” Magnus says, cupping his hands around his cup. 

“I’m gonna bring Sizzle It Up back,” Taako says decisively. “Chef Taako’s triumphant return.” He grins toothily at Magnus. “You wanna come with? You can carry the heavy boxes, plus you’d get some primo free food.”

_ Yes _ , Magnus thinks, startled by the emotion in his own chest; he’s forgotten what it felt like to wish for something he might be able to have.  _ Yes _ , he thinks vehemently.  _ I want that. _

Taako keeps talking; apparently Angus is a natural at magic (like everything else, Taako says cheerfully, the little shit) and he would have accidentally given Taako terrible burns yesterday if Taako hadn’t had  _ such skill and fortitude _ . Magnus listens, and nods, and inside him the seed of Taako’s plan grows, even though Magnus wishes it would stop; the more attached to his own future he is, the less good he is at his job.


	3. after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako and Magnus, after the bureau. Also, Kravitz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the chapter I had written actually lines up pretty okay with canon except I gave Magnus a different dog? wild. anyway, as we all try to recover from the finale together, here's.. this

A few days after, when it (the apocalypse) is all over, Magnus whittles on the couch. Taako brings him a plate of pancakes. Magnus absentmindedly eats one whole before realizing that they’re made in shapes; left on the plate are remarkably detailed pancake versions of Railsplitter and Steven. The tendril of a pancake Fisher sticks out of his mouth. 

Magnus probably has the easiest time of the three of them with the second set of memories, but it’s still strange, looking at his friends now. When he looks at Taako, he sees the Taako he knows, but he also sees a younger elf, one he thought he never knew, surfing on a planet they never named. Sometimes he looks at Taako and sees Lup. He looks at Taako and remembers a hundred years of working and laughing and dying alongside him.

It’s fucking  _ weird _ .

“So,” Taako drawls, falling back onto the couch with his own plate. “Krav and I are getting a house.”

Magnus is glad he hadn’t put a second pancake in his mouth, because not choking makes it much easier to conceal his surprise. “That’s great.” 

It’s not as though Taako wasn’t going to leave the moonbase at some point - almost everyone else has, even Merle. Magnus has purchased a cottage, outside some little town called Kennaird, although it was at the recommendation of Lucretia and he did it almost without realizing that he would be moving into it at some point. 

“It’s in Falrock,” Taako says casually. “We haven’t actually bought it yet, but money isn’t a problem since Kravitz works for a deity and rakes in that fuckin’ _ dough _ .”

“Falrock?” Magnus echoes. Falrock is just on the other side of Kennaird - it would take under half an hour to walk there on foot. He feels a wave of relief that is downright embarrassing in its intensity. He hadn’t realized, in the ecstatic and exhausting aftermath of saving the world, that doing so would mean separation from the people he had come to regard as family. Even his goodbyes to Angus, the little goober, had been said with conspicuously misty eyes. (Angus, being the world’s greatest detective, most certainly noticed, but being very polite, pretended not to notice.) “I didn’t know you wanted to settle down.”

“I’m not settling, homie,” Taako says. “I just figure, after the apocalypse, maybe Taako deserves a little vacay, you know?”

Taako is being very casual about this whole thing, even though he definitely knows where Magnus is going to be living. For someone who makes a big deal out of not caring, Taako is not especially talented at it. Magnus almost says something about it before he realizes that Taako’s careful focus on his plate might not be an attempt at apathy. Taako is running the idea past him, giving Magnus a chance to tell him to give him space.

Magnus bites off the head of pancake Steven. “Nice,” he says. “Lemme know when you move in, I’ll get you a housewarming gift.”

“Better be something good,” Taako says, mouth full. He’s a few bites into a pancake Umbra Staff, but he offers Magnus a wide smile anyway, and for some reason it’s this, more than anything, that makes Magnus realize they survived. 

 

It isn’t that Magnus doesn’t like Kravitz. It really isn’t that. He thinks Kravitz is a pretty cool guy, for someone who once or twice tried to kill them and is obviously lying about what his face looked like when he was alive. (If Magnus could look like that, he would lie too but… still.)

And he likes that Taako is happy. Together, Taako and Kravitz look like a matched set of fashionable, devastatingly gorgeous people who can’t keep their dumb smiles off their dumb faces because they’re too in love. 

But Taako is important to him twice over; he has poked and prodded his way into Magnus’s world with his sharp, ringed fingers so thoroughly that Magnus can’t imagine life without him. And maybe - just maybe - Magnus had always sort of pictured Taako as part of his hypothetical big happy ending.

 

Magnus does come by after they move in, and the smile Taako offers him when he opens the door is so winning that Magnus can’t begrudge him a thing. Kravitz hangs almost awkwardly behind him. He’s shed his usual suit in favor of a more casual button-down, though even that makes Magnus want to tug at his own ratty flannel.

“Merle is dropping by next week,” Taako says, drifting back to the kitchen to stir something. “So you’ll have to come back again then too.”

Dinner is pasta in a rich, creamy tomato sauce. Kravitz and Magnus share an amused glance when Taako starts talking about one of the ingredients that Joaquin showed him. “Like butter,” he says, “Firmer, saltier, but still milk-based, can you imagine?”

“Not really, dear,” Kravitz says, and Taako makes a face at him across the table.

Magnus feels as though he’s on the edge of intruding on this moment, until Taako grabs his arm. “Magnus is on my side, aren’t you Magnus?”

Magnus, mouth full, shoots a helpless look at Kravitz, who can’t hold back a laugh.

“Conspirators, the both of you,” Taako says indignantly, getting up to grab dessert. Kravitz looks at him with adoration as he goes, and the feeling of being an outsider threatens to creep back until Kravitz shifts his gaze to Magnus instead.

“You make him very happy,” Kravitz tells him a low, pleased voice, and Magnus is almost surprised at the strength of the affection for both of them welling up in his chest.

“So do you.”

Taako puts the cherries jubilee down on the table. “Plotting my downfall?”

“Do give us some credit, darling,” Kravitz says. “Where would we be without your charming company?”

“True,” Taako agrees. He thrusts spoons at both of them and when they simultaneously exclaim praise of the food, Taako huffs a laugh. Magnus doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this outwardly content.

 

Magnus does come around the next week, and then twice again that same month. Back on the moonbase, time had seemed to pass so slowly, but now it’s as though Magnus blinks and it’s his birthday. Carey and Killian send him a really nice set of throwing knives, Merle a venus flytrap, Lucretia a salvaged box of fancy chocolate from Neverwinter, and Angus a how-to book on raising jellyfish. It doesn’t have a lot of relevant information for when the jellyfish is huge and all-powerful, but the pictures are cool. Lup sends him a card that has a smiley face on it, and on the inside she wrote,  _ You’re welcome I didn’t reap your soul this year! _

“Okay, okay,” Taako says, drumming his fingers on the table in surreptitious excitement. “They’re pretty good, but I’m not sure they have us beat in the gift department.”

“I mean,” Magnus says, “It’s not, like, a contest.”

“You bet your ass it is,” Taako says. “And I’m about to win, my dude.” He puts a medium sized box down in front of Magnus on the table. “You should probably open it sooner rather than later, or this could all get real dark real fast.”

Magnus obligingly peels off the wrapping, then flips open the top of the cardboard box to reveal -

There is a moment where Magnus can’t even speak. “Guys,” he manages, and then after a second he comes to his senses and scoops the puppy out of the box, cradling it against his chest.

“Told you he’d cry,” Taako says to Kravitz.

“I’m not crying,” Magnus insists, although there’s definitely an argument to be made that he is. “I’m just - a dog?” Said dog wiggles against him. Magnus fervently hopes it didn’t have to stay in the box too long. 

Taako shifts, almost uncertain. “Well, I figured, we’re not on the moon anymore. I mean, you can’t bring her around too much because I’m allergic-”

“You’re allergic to peanut butter and you eat Reeses all the time,” Magnus points out.

“Yes, well,” Taako says vaguely, drifting into the kitchen to stir something that conveniently needs attention.

If Magnus does cry later that night, the dog helpfully cleans his face for him, so no one ever needs to know. “We’ll keep this between you and me,” he tells her. The dog is busy trying to climb down inside his shirt, but she seems to agree.

He names the puppy Ripper. She’s a scrappy thing, built like a terrier with the face of a hound. It quickly becomes apparent in the following weeks that she isn’t going to grow bigger than twenty-five, maybe thirty pounds. Magnus would die for her. 

Despite what Taako said about allergies, he dotes on her in much the same way he dotes on Angus. It has the same effect on Ripper as it has on the boy detective, and the dog treats he makes her go a long way to making Taako her favorite. Kravitz is wary around dogs for reasons Magnus is unsure of, and Ripper is similarly suspicious of him, although they spend enough time together to come to what seems like an understanding.

Life is good, in a way Magnus would never have let himself anticipate. He goes on long walks with Ripper in the morning and has enough business from the nearby town to support himself easily. The furniture he makes is simple, but sturdy. It’s worthy work. He’s over for dinner at Taako and Kravitz’s house at least once a week. 

Magnus works hard, pets his dog, and tries to relearn how to be happy. Sometimes, every fifth or sixth night, he wakes up in a cold sweat, heart beating so hard it hurts, but that’s just how things are. He ignores the twinge in his stomach when Taako kisses him goodnight on the cheek and the door shuts behind him. 

 

“It almost doesn’t feel real,” Taako confides, months after the apocalypse has come and gone. They’re sitting on a porch swing Magnus built. Taako waves a hand at the house, the porch they’re sitting on, the garden Kravitz is currently being thwarted by. (Magnus thinks Merle whispered some prank ideas to the plants the last time he was around; the pea sprouts keep unlacing Kravitz’s shoes and tying them together.)

The sunlight playing in Taako’s hair catches Magnus’s eye. He thinks he understands what Taako means; it is difficult, sometimes overwhelmingly so, to remind himself that this isn’t a trap. Isn’t temporary. They don’t have to leave and they don’t have to forget. 

Magnus feels old, often, in a way he thinks Taako doesn’t. Taako, after all, is still sprightly by elven standards; the extra hundred years don’t make half as much difference to him. But Magnus, for all he looks like he’s in his mid-thirties, is older even than the tiny, apple-faced old woman who visits him to buy toys for her great-grandchildren.

Magnus’s attention drifts to Kravitz, in the garden, trying to dissuade the raspberry plants from taking hold of his sleeve. The midday light makes the sweat on his dark forehead shine, finds subtle reds and oranges in that black, black hair. Magnus wonders how old Kravitz is, how long he had been working for the Raven Queen before he was swept away by their drama. 

When he turns his head, he finds Taako is watching him with an expression he can’t quite decipher. 

“Hmm?” he asks.

Taako taps his foot against Magnus’s leg. “You zoning out, old man?” 

“Do you and Kravitz want kids?” Magnus asks, a complete non sequitur. The thought hadn’t crossed his head and he can’t for the life of him figure out why it has now.

“God, no,” Taako says, like the question itself is a joke, but his punchline doesn’t quite land. “I think Kravitz wanted kids when he was alive, but that was centuries ago, so.”

“What about you?” Magnus asks, still not really knowing why.

Taako laughs. “What  _ about  _ me?” he says. “Geez, can you imagine?”

If Magnus is being honest with himself, he kind of can imagine. Taako has been different with Angus ever since they got their memories back. It’s one of the things they don’t talk about.

 

In the middle of the summer, Taako gets sick. He downplays it in the beginning, which in retrospect should have clued Magnus into how bad it was. 

“He’s not in danger,” Kravitz tells him, as they stand beside his bed. Taako is curled away from them, either sleeping or meditating. Magnus assumes the former, from the way Kravitz is talking.. “Not like, you know.” He makes what might be a scythe motion. “I would know. But it’s still…”

“Bad,” Magnus finishes. 

Some of the memories of the century he lost are hazy; this feels like deja vu. There had been a cycle - Magnus doesn’t remember which - when all the elves on the plane had been wiped out by some disease. The IPRE crew had arrived just in time for Taako and Lup to contract it. Lup had survived; Taako hadn’t. Looking down at Taako’s drawn, unconscious face, then at Kravitz’s worried one, Magnus wonders if it makes it better or worse that he’s seen Taako in much rougher shape. 

Without Magnus asking, Kravitz sets up the guest room for him. They do a lot of communication without words; Magnus goes home during the day to walk and feed Ripper, but trades off the work with Kravitz at night. Watching him diligently take care of Taako, Magnus feels bad for once having resented him; Taako deserves someone who will do this for him. 

It’s almost a week of Taako sleeping and meditating before he feels good enough to complain about the broth Kravitz brings him. Kravitz doesn’t react in the moment, but when they leave the room to let Taako get some rest he grins at Magnus, really grins, and in his expression there’s something akin to delight, to wonder. 

Magnus thinks he understands how he and Taako go together.

Later, when Magnus is helping Kravitz (Bringer of Death, Ender of Lives) bring in laundry, Kravitz plucks a cloak off the line and asks, so casually that Magnus doesn’t process it for a couple seconds, “Are you in love with Taako?”

“Oh - no,” Magnus says, then takes a second to think about it and shakes his head. “No, I’m pretty sure.”

“I didn’t mean-” Kravitz says. “Oh, that probably sounded like a threat, didn’t it? Shit. No, I just - I promise I was just curious. I mean, I wouldn’t be angry if you were.” 

He sounds genuinely apologetic; this is just Magnus’s life now, apparently. “I’m not,” he says. “Really, I swear.” It’s not a lie. Magnus sometimes thinks he could have been, but that moment passed a long time ago, before they landed on this world and certainly before he met Julia.

“I just wondered,” Kravitz says, still apparently concerned that he’s offended Magnus in some way.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Magnus tells him. “We’re good.”

Angus comes to visit for two weeks before his semester at the university. He stays with Taako and Kravitz because they have an extra room, but he and Magnus spend days together, in Kennaird or in the surrounding forests. Magnus will say, “Tell me about your classes next year,” and Angus will launch eagerly into a summary of his courses, to a level of detail where Magnus suspects he memorized the descriptions. 

When they’re in town, shopkeepers who know Magnus ask delightedly if this is his son. Magnus always says yes because it’s easier than trying to explain, even though he and Angus look nothing alike. After it happens a few times, Angus begins leaning into Magnus’s side when he says it. Magnus isn’t sure he knows he’s doing it, but it makes his chest hurt - in a good way - so he never tells him to stop.

Angus’s birthday falls near the end of his visit. He’s turning twelve, beanpole skinny with limbs he can’t quite wrangle. Magnus probably would have remembered the day on his own, but Taako is the one making a real production out of it - he bakes for a full three days beforehand, barely leaving the kitchen.

Angus weeps a little when he sees the feast Taako made spread out in front of him, the same kind of happy tears he used to cry when they returned safely from a mission.

“I’m going to miss this next year,” he tells Magnus, mouth full of cake, and Taako, walking past, overhears.

“Miss it?” he says, “What do you mean miss it, Ango, are you trying to skip out on us next summer?”

“No, I just-” Angus pauses, clutching his fork very tightly. “You want me to come next summer? I can visit for my birthday again?”

Taako shrugs in what only Magnus recognizes as a calculated motion. “Hell,” he says, “Stay the whole summer if you want.” He reaches down and expertly wipes a speck of frosting off of Angus’s cheek with one thumb, then drifts casually away. 

Angus hides his beaming, tearful smile in another bite of cake and Magnus has to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing. 

“You sap,” Magnus says good-naturedly when he catches Taako later. “How long have you been planning that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Taako says innocently, and then he does a very exaggerated wink in Magnus’s direction before turning to dump some dishes in the sink.  “I just like seeing him cry.”

“You like making him happy,” Magnus says, leaning on the counter. “You can admit it.”

“Some of us have reputations to uphold,” Taako says haughtily, but his shoulders are relaxed, and when he goes to leave the kitchen, he gives Magnus a friendly hip check. 

 

Angus leaves, with the promise of bringing them back presents from the city next time he visits, and summer eases into fall. Merle brings his kids over only a few weeks after Angus leaves, and once he leaves it takes Magnus a while to get used to a house that isn’t filled with loud children. It takes Magnus weeks to realize that he’s over at Taako and Kravitz’s house more often than he isn’t; he eats dinner there four times a week at least, sometimes five or six. Ripper has a favorite spot in Kravitz’s garden because she once found a vole there.

The transition to winter is much harder; it’s an unusually cold year. Taako asks him seriously about if he wants to look into building a magical bridge between Magnus’s house and theirs. 

“It wouldn’t be hard,” he says clinically. “It’s really just a matter of shortening the distances between a room there and a room here and then we’d be able to walk between the two houses whenever.”

“You choose the strangest times to be modest,” Kravitz tells Taako, then turns to Magnus. “Spatial relations are actually very advanced magic, especially since they’re not technically transmutation.”

“I don’t want to trouble you guys,” Magnus says. “Worst case scenario is I have mayo and peanut butter for dinner a couple more nights a week, right?”

“Is that what you eat at home?” Kravitz asks, clearly horrified, at the same moment Taako asks a more general, “How are you still alive?”

Magnus just shrugs, and the conversation moves on, but in the following weeks he notices Kravitz packing him more and more leftovers every meal.

 

It’s the heart of winter when Magnus and Ripper come over for dinner and find themselves snowed in by the time dinner - an hours-long affair in this household - wraps up. Taako and Kravitz seem untroubled by the prospect of Magnus staying over, even though he hasn’t done so since Taako’s bout of summer illness. Ripper is more than happy to curl up in the empty space in the extra half of the bed.

A little after midnight, after some unsatisfactory dozing, Magnus pulls himself out of bed and tiptoes out onto the porch. A dusting of new snow covers the edges of the wood, but Magnus pulls his feet up onto the porch swing and tries to get his breath back. Being able to see the puffs of white fog when he exhales helps. A few minutes pass before something soft hits him in the back. Taako is standing there, wrapped in the other end of the blanket he just threw on top of Magnus. Wordlessly, Magnus holds up his arm and Taako clambers under it. 

“How did you know I was up?” Magnus asks.

“Heard your snoring stop,” Taako says. “Thought maybe you accidentally strangled yourself in the blanket.”

“Couldn't sleep,” Magnus explains. “Just one of those nights, you know?

“Sure,” Taako says. They sit in silence for a few more minutes. “Lup and Barry have some time off next month. They're gonna drop by for a few days.”

“Cool,” Magnus says. “Don't worry, you'll have your guest room back by then.”

Taako makes a sound, but Magnus can’t tell if it’s of agreement or displeasure. He glances at him and sees that he's nodding off slightly, head leaning against Magnus’s shoulder. This kind of moment - any hint of vulnerability that Taako shows him - feels both so old and so new. Magnus nudges him gently. 

“It’s cold out,” he says. “Don’t want us to fall asleep and freeze.”

“Like we could, ya fuckin’ space heater,” Taako says, more fondly than he might ever during the day. When he pulls his blanket off Magnus to head back into the house, Magnus takes one moment with the cold on his skin and takes a long breath in to feel the biting air inside him, just to celebrate that he can. 

 

The next day, the snow has melted a little and Magnus decides to get a move on before it starts snowing, turning down Kravitz’s offer of scrambled eggs. He puts his coat and boots on and Ripper in her little coat and they’re about five steps out of the front door when behind him Taako says suddenly, “You don’t have to leave.”

Magnus turns. Taako is standing there in Kravitz’s robe, two autumn jackets, rainboots, and about six scarves that were almost certainly intended for decorative rather than practical purposes. Ripper trots back over to him eagerly.

“I’m not?” Magnus says. “I mean, I’m not going anywhere, just back to my house.”

“That’s what I mean,” Taako says. “You don’t have to. I mean, you don’t have to go. If you don’t want to. You could just stay. Here.”

Magnus laughs a little, confused. “I mean, I’m coming back. I’m here half the time anyway.”

“Exactly,” Taako says. He steps forward.  “We have room. We have food. We even bought a crate for your goddamn dog.”

“What are you saying?” Magnus asks.

Taako cracks his second knuckles - a nervous habit he picked up around cycle 40. “I am saying,” he says reluctantly, like someone is forcing the words out of him at gunpoint, “that I do not want you to leave.”

“What?” Magnus says. 

“Are you deaf?” Taako exclaims. “I just fucking said it, idiot: I, a complete moron  _ apparently _ , want you to come and live with me. With us.”

“Oh,” Magnus says. There’s a feeling building inside him that he can’t quite identify - unburied hope? Resignation? Warmth?

“Yeah,  _ oh _ ,” Taako says.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Magnus says. “I want to. But this is like, your home. Your home with Kravitz. I don’t want to intrude on your happy ending just because you think I can’t feed myself.”

Taako steps closer and puts his hands on Magnus’s shoulders. “You big fucking dummy,” he says, as simultaneously affectionate and frustrated as Magnus has ever heard him. “Not everything is a story. This isn’t an ending. I just can’t sleep without your stupid snoring and we need someone around here who can fix the plumbing. Also, for the record, I  _ absolutely  _ do not believe that you can feed yourself.”

Magnus laughs, even though it doesn’t feel like enough for the lightness in his chest. “Okay,” he says, without thinking, the words almost not making sense in his mouth. “I’ll stay.”

“About fucking time,” Taako says, but he’s only barely not grinning, and Magnus doesn’t even think before grabbing him and swinging him around, up into the air. Taako shrieks and clutches at him, laughing like they’re a few cycles in again, still believing they’d kill the Hunger soon. “Put me down! Jesus!” he squawks, but he’s snickering.

“Can we talk dogs?” Magnus asks. “This house is bigger than mine, so we’d have more room, plus I think Ripper is lonely.” 

“Later,” Taako says, clearly hoping Magnus will forget to bring it up. Joke’s on him; Magnus has a good memory almost  _ exclusively _ when it comes to dogs. “Breakfast will get cold.”

It’s a foreign concept, the idea of finite but valuable time, and Magnus is slowly growing to love it. He follows Taako and his trailing scarves inside, his dog at his heels, and it doesn’t feel familiar but it feels… good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr at mcgonagollygee


End file.
